


In the Breaking Light

by Emjayelle



Series: rare pairs galore [3]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Grief/Mourning, Healing, Loss, M/M, Post-Finale, mild grief-related depression, references to canon character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-06
Updated: 2014-04-06
Packaged: 2018-01-18 09:34:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1423525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emjayelle/pseuds/Emjayelle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Camlann, after all the loss and the deaths, life doesn’t stop for those left standing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In the Breaking Light

**Author's Note:**

  * For [alby_mangroves](https://archiveofourown.org/users/alby_mangroves/gifts).



> Thanks to alby_mangroves for the original prompt. (DAMN YOU IT ATE AT MY BRAIN)
> 
> And giant thank yous, hugs, and everything sweet and nice *waggles eyebrows* to alby_mangroves, giselleslash, ingberry, and charcoalsuns--for the support, brainstorming, beta, pre-reading and just general awesomeness and perfection. I love you guys. 
> 
> Title from Vienna Teng’s song _Breaking Light_

 

 

### i.

The sight of Camelot, crested white and gold by the rising sun, her scarlet banners floating in the chill wind of the fast-disappearing night—the town sprawled at her feet, cradled in her shadow like cubs against their mother’s belly—was once a comfort for him to behold. It made his blood sing with the sort of elated stillness that could only mean home. 

Percival steers his horse down the shadowy path leading from the woods into the valley down below where light slowly spreads. He glances up at Camelot’s towers, but lets his eyes slide over the stone without pause to settle on the road in front of him. 

Any song Camelot might have sung to him is now but a frail whimper, like pulling on a wound with too-fragile stitches.

 

 

### ii.

In the courtyard, the torches are burning low, and when Percival finally jumps off his horse, the impact of the hard stone ground shakes along his legs. The half-asleep stable boy with straw still stuck in his hair and creases along his cheek from where he leaned against the wood of one of the stall takes the reins from him with a pale, small hand. Smells of stone and wet straw, manure and steel fill the air, nothing like the pungent wet smells of the woods Percival’s just left behind—the gritty, muddy lanes of Camelot’s villages. 

He makes an aborted gesture to cover his nose, frowns, swallows, then puts his raised hand on the boy’s head instead, gives him a coin.

He drags himself to the armoury, then to his chambers, sure someone would have informed Leon of his return, grateful that nothing’s urgent enough right now. Still, head low between his shoulders as he sits on his bed, half asleep and muscles heavy, he waits but no knock comes to the door.

 

 

### iii.

Round Table meetings dredge along like mud and Percival spends most of them with eyes on the wood of the table, on the grooves in the slick polished surface.

“Thank you, sir Percival,” the Queen says, after he’s done giving his report.

The golden light coming through the window casts brown shadows over the wood, and he nods—a sharp movement he can feel right in his shoulders, into the stiff muscles of his back.

Briefly, he meets Leon’s gaze, blue even from across the table. Percival can’t quite decide whether it’s full of worry or disapproval so he lets his eyes shift to the high window, dust floating in the beam of sunlight, where they rest on a red pane the colour of Camelot.

Percival has done his duty. Has done it well. Leon can advise the Queen, train the new knights,, sit on councils, and frown at him for not doing the same, Percival doesn’t mind. He has done his duty.

There’s talk of unrest on the Eastern border. Percival volunteers.

He rides out the next morning.

 

 

### iv.

The Three-Headed Goat isn’t well-known, and it’s quickly obvious why, what with its rather diminutive size, crumbling walls, leaking roof, and absolutely marvellous stench of stale ale, and unwashed bodies. The food looks like it should belong in the pigs pen—which, judging by the few porcine specimens scattered around the room, might well be—rather than to the bedraggled, foul-smelling farmers sitting at the dingy tables. 

“A fine establishment,” Gwaine says standing in the doorway with this look on his face like he’s coming back to his mother’s house and she has his favourite meal ready for him.

“For god’s sake, move,” Arthur says, pushing him aside, his blond hair dark with rain and clinging to his forehead. He steps inside, stops, stays still for far too long. Percival holds his breath. Beside him Leon has to turn around pinching his lips to hide his laughter, and Elyan suddenly finds the stony lintel very interesting.

Arthur turns slowly and glares at Gwaine, the kind of glare that clearly means _you fucking idiot_ and _you’ll pay for this later_ , something that twists his face up and makes him look like a child about to have a tantrum.

“Fine, indeed,” he says through clenched teeth. 

Gwaine just smiles as innocently as he can, which is to say not well at all, and looks at Merlin, once Arthur has his back turned, with two fingers raised. Merlin smirks and punches him on the shoulder before following Arthur in, already helping him with his heavily drenched cape.

Of course, they’re keeping score. 

The ladies do not fare much better than the food, but that doesn’t stop Gwaine from pulling one in his lap and making her laugh and giggle. 

Nothing can stop them. 

Not the dreadfully bitter ale, or Leon’s shit luck at dice, or the weirdly coloured stew Elyan insists is made of rats. Not when Percival wins the impromptu arm wrestling contest against the local champion, almost starting a riot of put upon locals until Merlin stumbles into a table and spills his whole tankard on Percival and that seems like retribution enough. 

Not when they all have to pile themselves in the only room at the top of the stairs, the air turning foul within moments as the six of them shed their chain mail—wet steel and sodden woollen socks and oiled leather, sweat and stale breaths. Not the way Leon mumbles in his sleep and sends Merlin giggling like a child and Arthur has to snap at him to shut up, and yet pokes Leon in the face with his toe. Not the way Gwaine’s knee digs into Percival’s side, and Elyan has to sleep in the chair by the door, occasionally slipping and cursing. Not the rain that keeps on pouring outside, the dark wetness of the night and the long ride that awaits them tomorrow.

Nothing.

***

The rain has been falling for days, cold and hard, turning the road into a slippery mess, and night is falling fast. Percival’s hungry and cold. He needs a rest.

He rides fast past The Three-Headed Goat, doesn’t stop, doesn’t even look at the sign. He rides until the tavern is far, far behind him, and doesn’t stop. Not for anything.

 

 

### v.

When he’s in Camelot, Percival only sees Leon on the training field and at meetings. So it’s unexpected when he comes back to his chambers after dropping his horse at the stables and finds Leon there, leaning against the wall.

Percival opens his door, lets Leon in without a word and walks right past him to the small table beside his bed. From the corner of his eye he can see Leon fidget, his armour clanging lightly.

Percival lights a candle even though it’s the middle of the day. Autumn rains keep on falling and the day is dark, his rooms even darker. The soft glow of it does nothing to keep away the gloom, the heaviness of the air.

Leon sits on a chair at the foot of Percival’s bed while Percival drags his tunic off, the fabric clinging to his skin with water and sweat and mud. He only turns to face Leon once he’s washed all the dirt from his face, though he can’t seem to get his hands clean at all.

“I—” Leon says, clears his throat and leans forward with his elbows on his knees. He passes a hand through his hair, shakes it a little, curls bouncing, all clean and warm and dry the way Percival isn’t, hasn’t been for a long time. “ _We’ve_ —” Leon tries again. “The Queen wants me to offer you a new position. Here. In Camelot.”

Percival swallows loudly, his vision goes blurry at the edges and he doesn’t realise he’s clenching his fists at his sides until his nails hurt his palms.

“Training. She wants you to, if you want, to train the new knights and—”

“No.”

The word drops between them, cutting and too loud and sort of dry in a way that makes Percival clear his throat while Leon’s face remains unreadable. Percival forces himself to move—to fold his tunic, to sit on his bed and slowly take off his boots, then his socks, with sharp, precise movements.

Leon lets out a long shuddery breath. “I—yeah. I thought, maybe. But, no.” He stands and walks to the door. Percival finds himself staring at his dry, worn boots, and pushes his own ruined ones under the bed with a bare foot. “There were words of smuggling in the west, we need to track them down, see what they’re—”

“I’ll go.”

The quiet between them lasts long enough that Percival drags his eyes up to meet Leon’s, tracking his whole body on the way—the chain mail, clean and polished, the perfectly buckled belt, the long red cape. The golden dragon. Leon stands tall and straight, always the dutiful knight, the polished and loyal knight, the perfect knight. Everything Camelot deserves.

“Of course,” he says once Percival is looking at him. He turns to go, hand on the door frame and—

“Leon,” Percival says before he can stop himself, standing up, one of his socks still in his hands, as Leon turns, jaw working and tensed. Percival thinks he might be angry, or annoyed, he doesn’t know. “Thank the Queen for her offer.”

“I will.” 

“I’ll… I’ll be back before the winter.”

Leon pinches his lips, nods, all of it jerky and economical, soldier-like. And Percival is struck by the fact that it’s all so familiar to him and yet it all feels out of axis and wrong, and— 

It’s all—

“Be careful,” Leon says, then leaves.

 

 

### vi.

“Do you miss it?”

“What?” Gwaine sounds half asleep, and Percival turns around to look at him, stretched in the green grass by the riverbank, armour, cape, and tunic discarded. 

“You know… travelling. Going wherever you want, whenever you want.”

“Nah, not really. Don’t get me wrong, it was good for a while. Really good.”

Percival lies beside him, the sun beating on his skin, the sky blue and cloudless, limitless, with only the sound of the wind in the trees, the water rushing by. “But?”

“This,” he makes a large movement with his hand before letting it drop on his chest, “is nice, too. This is good too.” Gwaine turns his head to the side to peer at Percival, fringe falling into his eyes, and grins. “But sometimes…”

“Sometimes?”

“Yeah, sometimes.” He snorts. “Don’t tell Princess I said that, though.”

***

The icy water seizes at Percival’s muscles as he stands in the centre of the river. The current pushes at him, and the night is dark, so dark with a starless sky. The bank in front of him is a black shape full of trees, and he thinks about crossing completely. To just walk into the dark mass of it and disappear. There, it isn’t Camelot anymore. Camelot is on the bank behind him with his armour and his cape and his sword. Camelot is behind him and he could just keep on walking.

He thinks what if—what if he just did that? What if he just put a foot in front of the other and never looked back? He moves. His hand drops in the water, the coolness of it slipping fast and easy between his fingers. The slimy rocks under his feet make his boot slide, and he stumbles, water above his waist. Even as he rights himself, he stares at the other side, and thinks just do it, just cross, just do it—just—what if, and—perhaps and—into the dark there. Let it swallow—let it—just one step and—

Above the rushing of the water, the thoughts in his head, the sudden scared whinny of his horse, he hears the unmistakable sound of steel on steel, a sword being drawn, and turns, slips, falls—

 

 

### vii.

It’s summer, no, spring. It’s spring and there are still flowers blooming in the tree behind his house when he walks up the path, kicking stones with his boots.

He holds a deer carcass over his shoulders and his shirt’s ripped and bloody, completely ruined as sweat runs down his back. He stinks.

His mother clips him over the head when she sees the state he’s in, has to stand on her tiptoes to do so and he laughs, lets her do it, would hug her too if he didn’t know any better. 

Behind the house in their little garden, flowers already open and bright, the stool on which he sits creaks under his weight as he bends down to soak his shirt in the water barrel. 

His mother comes out and grabs a handful of rosemary, smiles at him, proud and loving, and when she kisses his forehead, lips soft and warm, he closes his eyes and takes a deep breath of freshly baked bread and herbs and of the soap they use to wash. She pats his cheek before going back inside and he thinks he loves her then, loves her so much his heart feels too big for his chest.

Someone giggles behind him and he turns around with a fake growl. Lillian screams and sticks out her tongue at him before running away. He chases her, his little sister, with her freckled face and flaming hair, and sneaky little fingers that steal food from his plate when their mum isn’t looking. Little brat that kicks his shin under the table, and is the most annoyingly perfect thing he has ever seen in his life.

She screeches high and bright when he catches her around the waist, laughs and kicks as he twirls her high, hair like red, burning fire under the sun. The most beautiful, the most adored.

 

 

### viii.

“.... you’ve lost a lot,” Gaius is saying, and Percival almost laughs, chokes on it like a sob, bitter in his throat, with the ghost of his mother’s kiss still lingering on his forehead, his sister’s laughter clear in his mind.

“Yeah,” he says, and it sounds to his ears like the way Gwaine would say it, sardonic and rueful after one too many ales. He clenches his teeth around it. “It’s—yeah, it’s. You could say—” He frowns, wants to rub the tightness around his eyes, but his arm’s strapped to his body, and the other one’s too heavy to lift.

“... it was almost too much, to be honest,” Gaius continues while he putters around his table doing something Percival can’t see from this angle. “That much blood… well, no matter.” He looks back with a small smile for Percival. “We got you back.” 

_Oh._

His lips twitch for a second, more like a tick, like a startled little thing no one ever would regard as a smile, not even a tiny bit, and says that he’s—

“—glad to be back,” and “Can’t get rid of me that easily,” and again it sounds like Gwaine, it sounds far away and it burns his throat. 

It’s still summer—no spring, it was spring—and his sister’s laughter rings loud inside of him.

He rolls his head to the side, heavy, to try and push his face in the coolness of the pillow under it. Everything feels like it’s on fire, like he can’t breathe.

Leon looks back at him from the stool where he’s sitting, sleeves rolled up and breeches dirty with mud, or perhaps blood, eyes dark and lips pinched. He doesn’t say a word. Percival falls asleep, his last thought on the blood staining Leon’s hands and the way his fingers shook.

 

 

### ix. 

Merlin’s old room is only lit by a few candles when Percival opens his eyes again, the shadows warm and moving. It smells like herbs, like medicine and blood.

“You’re awake.”

Percival looks to the side, head still too heavy. Leon’s face is… something. Something Percival’s never really seen on Leon before and it takes him a moment to realise that Leon’s angry, his mouth downturned and pinched, eyes dark. 

He grips Percival’s forearm and squeezes, holds him tight until Percival winces.

“Don’t—” Leon takes a deep breath, a harsh quick inhale through his nose, and he’s shaking, face twisting in held back rage, says, “don’t you fucking dare. Don’t— _leave_ ,” and shakes Percival’s arm sending pain all up his shoulder. “You hear me?”

“Leon—”

“ _Do you hear me?_ ”

Percival’s mind is sluggish and it takes him a long stretch of time to see it, to recognise the pain, the fear in Leon’s face. 

Brave knight, stoic knight, perfect knight Leon.

He shakes his head, swallows, throat dry and hurting, and says, “I’m here,” and again and again, until his voice cracks. He coughs.

Leon’s eyes go wide. He looks down at his grip on Percival’s arm, startled, and unwraps his fingers slowly, carefully, then soothes the skin with the tips of his fingers, something so fleeting and barely there that it hurts more somehow.

“No.” Percival wants to reach with his other arm, his strapped arm, and Leon looks at him confused. “No,” he repeats and flexes his hand, pushes through the pain to lift his arm into Leon’s hand, until Leon gets it, and wraps his fingers around his muscles again, lighter than before. Percival shakes his head more, it’s not what he wants, not—he needs—“Harder.”

Leon holds onto him, makes it hurt a little and it’s good to be touched, to be—to matter. It’s good, it’s—

His breath stutters out when Leon brings a finger of his other hand to Percival’s split lip, the sting of the touch making him hiss between his teeth. He feels his lips move of their own accord—like a reflex, a habit—to purse themselves, to kiss Leon’s fingertip. And he wants to stop them, the movement jerky as he locks his jaw, and stops the movement so it’s only a brushing of skin on skin. It hurts, and his jaw slackens, opens up in a harsh intake of breath, tensing all along the muscles of his neck, his shoulders. Its wet there, between lips and fingers. He’s so busy fighting off the heat building behind his eyes that he doesn’t realise he’s licked the tip of Leon’s finger until Leon has pulled it back—dragging wetness over Percival’s mouth—with a surprised grunt, like he’s not realised either what he’s done.

There’s a long moment then, filled only by Percival’s harsh breathing as he tries to take huge lungfuls of air to stop the sob that wants to crawl and claw itself out of him. He almost feels dizzy, like there isn’t enough air, enough light, enough of anything, like he’s wrong-footed and hollow.

Leon reaches out again, fingers rough on Percival’s chin, clumsy and trembling, touching and retreating. He curls his hand into a fist, rests it there, on Percival’s chin, knuckles right under his mouth while his thumb brushes lightly against Percival’s jaw.

He only pulls it away when they have both settled, when Percival’s breathing normally, eyes closed and body hurting. 

“I’m here,” he says again, opening his eyes. He doesn’t know what else to say.

Leon takes a long shivery breath, one that wracks his body, shakes his whole spine, and leans forward, forehead coming to rest on Percival’s chest. Percival can feel his warm breath on his skin, the fleeting touch of his lips. He grunts as he moves his arm, pain shooting up to his shoulder and neck, but manages to lift it from under Leon, to settle his hand on Leon’s head.

He pushes his fingers into the curls, spreads them, and Leon raises one of his hands, scrambles it along Percival’s arm until his fingers are on Percival’s, pushing them against his scalp, holding them there. Holding.

 

 

### x.

All winter, Leon visits Percival every day. 

He sits by the bed more often in silence than not, but having him there is more than enough.

In the early days, he even helps Gaius feed and wash Percival, changes the bandages. When one of Percival’s wounds gets infected, he wakes up from the fever to find Leon by his side. 

Caring, overworked, worried Leon.

And sad. A deep-boned sadness Percival had never seen because he hadn’t been looking, hadn’t wanted to see for all that it’s so obvious now he knows it’s there, etched all over Leon, in every single line of him. It speaks to Percival’s. 

When Percival’s better and can sit in bed, can move both his arms, Leon brings him back his cape, red and gold and unblemished, carefully folded between his hands. He sets it on the small table by the bed where Percival can reach it. The next day, and the one after that, and the one after, he always takes a quick look at it when he comes to see Percival, but never comments on the fact that it hasn’t moved, hasn’t been touched.

One day, Leon’s telling him about a farmer who came to petition the Queen about his cows and the words stumble out of Percival without warning or thought. “Gwaine would have loved that.”

Leon looks surprised, then his face softens a little and he smiles—a small thing, but still something new, something different—and Percival finds that while the name had hurt his throat, hurt his lips, they are soothed at the sight of it.

“Yeah, he would have,” Leon says, looks pensive then adds, “That arsehole.”

Percival thinks the sound that escapes him could almost be a laugh. And Leon smiles again.

 

 

### xi.

In the spring, Percival sits in the gardens behind the castle. The stone bench is cold under him and the air still holds a chill he finds refreshing after the stuffiness of Gaius’ rooms, warm and stale with winter.

He fingers the cloak on his lap, carefully folded the way Leon left it. The red of it is bright and vivid in the browns and greys and washed-out greens of the gardens—such a pale echo of their potential, of what they’ll be at the height of summer—a shock of colour that he can’t bring himself to look at, except from the corner of his eye. And yet he pushes his fingers into the fabric, feels it over his palms, revels in the way the roughness of it catches on his dry skin and callouses. 

“Is this it, then?” Leon says as he sits beside Percival flicking his cape from under him with a long habitual sweep of his arm. His chain mail glints under the weak sun. 

Percival turns slightly, like his whole body can’t help it, but he doesn’t let his eyes look too close, just settle on the treeline in the distance. He curls his fists over the folded cloak, the span of them hiding the golden dragon, and takes a deep breath, something that catches at his lungs and pulls at his wound and makes him gasp.

Leon’s hand rises as if to touch his shoulder, hesitates in mid air, retreats, then comes back to settle solid on his arm where his fingers are warm and soft against Percival’s cool skin.

“I don’t know,” is what Percival says after a moment, voice low and reedy, and yet a flock of blackbirds rise from the trees in the distance, as if startled by it.

 

 

### xii.

That night, Leon comes to him. 

He stands quiet in the doorway for a moment before closing the door behind him. Percival reaches for him and Leon grabs his arm, climbs on the bed, and straddles Percival’s hips, his knees tight around him.

“Don’t look away,” he says, fingers hard on the side of Percival’s face, lips close.

Percival raises a trembling hand to Leon’s, pushes against it until he can feel his nails digging in his skin and hear Leon’s bitten off moan, then says,

“Harder,” and kisses him.

 

 

### xiii.

“Where will you go?” Leon asks.

“Ealdor.”

Percival fiddles with his vambrace, rolls his shoulders under the weight of his chain mail. It used to feel good on him, used to be comforting and familiar. Now, it’s ill-fitting somehow, like an old, well-worn shirt that doesn’t quite fit anymore, and he wonders if it ever will again.

Leon wouldn’t understand if Percival tried to tell him why he needs to go for a while. Why he needs something that’s personal, that isn’t Camelot’s, but only his. Something which isn’t duty and honour and life-long pledges that can, and will, only end in death.

Ealdor is as good a place as any to start.

“That is—” He clears his throat. “I mean. Only if the Queen...”

“She will,” Leon says, with clear conviction that’s all First Knight of Camelot. 

It shines in him, that faith, Percival thinks, the both of them standing there face to face in front of the closed doors to the throne room. He’s been looking more at Leon these days, like he hadn’t before, and sees a lot that he hadn’t before, too. 

Percival’s almost envious of it, this solid certainty inside of Leon that lets him know what to do, where to go, that has other people turning to him, royalty and peasants alike, putting their trust in him, knowing he won’t let them down.

“What if he isn’t there?” Leon says.

Percival shrugs, a short hiss through his teeth as his shoulder twinges, and Leon takes a small step toward him, stops, steps back, but it’s enough to warm something inside Percival.

He sees so much more than before.

 

 

### xiv.

“What are you doing?”

Leon’s leading a horse to stand beside Percival’s in the courtyard, no armour on, only simple breeches and a tunic. He checks the ties on his saddle bags.

“Leon. What are you doing?”

Leon doesn’t even look up when he says, “Coming with you.”

“But—You. Why?”

Leon sighs, a long-suffering noise like Percival’s a child or too thick to understand something simple, and Percival clenches his jaw, wants to tell him to bugger off, that he doesn’t need—

“Because I want to,” Leons says as he mounts his horse. “Unless _you_ don’t want me to.” He looks down at Percival with a frown, something doubtful in his eyes, almost insecure, and it’s this more than anything else that shakes Percival, makes his breath come short, his legs almost going weak with it.

Because Leon is Camelot’s, almost just as much as Arthur was. Percival can’t imagine Leon not serving her, not being there for her, not defending her. And maybe that makes him selfish, but he mounts his own horse and doesn’t tell him to stay, only,

“What of Camelot?”

Leon looks up at the towers, bright and white in the spring sun, solid and unbreakable and still standing, after all, still standing without Uther, still standing without Arthur.

“She will keep,” he says, solid and certain and unshakable.

And Percival, hands tight on his reins, feels like he finally sees Leon then, all of him, and that faith, that same certainty, starts to bloom inside of him, filling the empty spaces. 

“Yes,” he says. “It will all keep.”

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> If you see any mistakes and/or typos, or have issues with anything in my fics, please free to contact me on [tumblr](http://emjayelle.tumblr.com) (anonymous option is on) or on [livejournal](http://emjayelle.livejournal.com). Thank you.


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